After The Trial
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU set between seasons 1 and 2. Sequel to "The Trial". What would the world *really* look like without Duncan MacLeod?
1. Chapter 1

After the Trial

A/N: This is a sequel to an old story of mine called "The Trial" which is recommended to read first so this one will make sense. It's been on the back burner for several years and I finally decided to start writing it. Hope you enjoy. Please read and review.

It was the beginning of summer in Seacouver. The temperatures raised and the city continued to thrive as it always did: thousands of people every hour of every day going in every which direction and living their lives. The city was large enough that at times it appeared most easy to get lost in the midst of all its hustle and bustle, and the population was certainly large enough that life did not cease to function as usual just because one person fell out of the human rat race. A city with a particularly high crime rate, there were murders and suicides and suspected murders and suspected suicides quite frequently, and even this couldn't slow down the marathon pace of the city's life.

As such, life didn't merely cease to function when somebody became absent through hospitalization or institutionalization either. There were three major hospitals, two free clinics, and two mental health facilities, all of which saw a revolving door of patients, some repeat customers, on an ever-regular basis. People with broken bones, people in car accidents, people with severe allergies, women in labor, elderly who fell down or suffered a heart attack or stroke, children who fell off of swings, monkey bars, skate boards, and in all instances some people came and left in the same day, some stayed for an extended period of time, and some never left the hospital. This was not just limited to those the patients who died while under a doctor's care, truly some patients were beyond a doctor's help, but unfortunately there was just no other place in the world to put them.

Amanda Darieux was a doctor at Seacouver General Hospital, she'd first worked there during her third year residency in medical school, she'd been there now for 14 years. In all that time, despite all of modern medicine and science's advances in preserving life, she'd long lost track of how many people she had seen leave the world while they were patients there. She also couldn't remember how many new lives she had seen start out in the maternity ward. Every so often she liked to creep up there and take a look at all the new life, it was a pick-me-up whenever she was frustrated with her job and in desperate need of one. Her own son, Kenny, had started out in one of those bassinets as well almost 11 years ago, some days she wished he still was.

Another typical day at Seacouver General, everything from drunk driving victims to 80 year olds with chest pains to the hypochondriacs with good insurance who could _afford_ to be and came to make a death bed out of every little ache and sneeze, and she had her own list of patients she'd whittled down over the course of the day. Now she had a free moment and strolled down one of the hospital's neverending corridors to find the man that she was looking for.

At the end of the corridor there were three male doctors talking amongst themselves on a coffee break. Dr. Adam Pierson stood in the middle and Amanda watched him turn one way and the other as he spoke with his colleagues, looking to her as though he were watching a tennis match as he talked.

In the middle of the conversation, Adam caught sight of Amanda in the corner of his eye and turned to see her, she just stood back and flashed him a smug smile and nodded her head to the left, letting him know she wanted to have a word with him. He quickly finished speaking with the other doctors and followed her down another corridor. Their own 'watering hole' of sorts where they could speak in private was in a part of the east wing that had been a TB ward when the hospital was newly built back in the 1930s. Though science was supposed to trump superstition, most of the hospital faculty had reservations about being in the ward at all, some outright refusing to set foot in it, their position at the hospital be damned. It was never officially closed down but the funding was granted to add onto and expand the hospital to accommodate everyone without having to rely on the old ward's facilities.

The ward looked like the perfect setting for a horror movie, a run-down part of the hospital by comparison to the rest that thrived with movement, long, empty corridors, rooms that sat empty, beds that only collected dust as no people frequented them anymore. Well, not quite _no one_.

Amanda leaned against the wall and said to Adam, "I need to talk to you."

"Shall I guess?" he asked as he folded his arms against his chest, "Or are you just going to tell me?"

"It's about that patient we have in common," Amanda told him.

"I guessed it," Adam replied.

She flashed a sarcastic smile and said to him, "Remember when you told me there was a place to send these guys to so somebody else can look after them and try to figure out what's wrong with them? Exactly _how_ does a sanctuary for mind-melted Immortals have a waiting list?"

"It's still a highly experimental place, Amanda," Adam told her, "They have limited resources, limited space, and some pre-existing cases who are _very_ difficult to manage right now."

"Meanwhile," Amanda nodded her head to gesture down the ward, "This guy's been this hospital's dirty secret for five months now."

"At least we had the ward open to use," Adam said with a small shrug, "Saves us the trouble of people asking questions."

The two doctors walked down the corridor and came to one room on their right and looked in through the wire partition in the door's window.

Confined to the room's hospital bed was a man most people in the city didn't know by name, and the ones that did wouldn't know him by his appearance now. This was Duncan MacLeod, a man who for all intents and purposes seemed to be in his early 30s and was once upon a time a strong, vibrant and lively man. In five months' time, his black hair that had already been long when he was admitted into the hospital had grown longer, gnarled and unruly, half of his face was concealed behind five months' of facial hair growth, also untended and unruly. His body had lost a fair amount of its muscle tone from the months of inactivity, and additional weight was lost from being fed only through a tube and IV sparingly, both of which the two physicians had had a particularly difficult time applying. The official word on his condition was comatose, save for the occasional writhing around on the bed and the series of grunts and whimpers that escaped him, he was completely unresponsive. All the tests had been done on him, he didn't respond to light, to sound, to pain, to stimuli of any sort, officially the hospital had been able to find _no_ cause for his condition. As far as the rest of the hospital knew, this patient had been transferred out to another facility long ago, but Amanda and Adam had agreed to keep him hidden in General until they could figure out _where_ to put him.

"How long can we _possibly_ keep him here?" Amanda asked him.

Adam gave the patient in the room one more look and said, turning to Amanda, "As long as tuberculosis doesn't make a comeback in this part of the country, probably until we're both old and gray."

"Would you be serious, Adam?" Amanda asked.

"I am," he replied, "We both know _he's_ not going to get any older."

"It's just so frustrating," Amanda said as they walked off and headed back the way they came.

"Why?" Adam asked, "Because we can't help him _or_ because he's still here and we have to look at him and be _reminded_ of it?"

"It's everything," Amanda told him, "He has _such_ a wonderful family. _Oh_ , by the way, what are you and Alexa doing tonight?"

"I get off in an hour," Adam looked at his watch, "We're going out for dinner, why? You want to tag along?"

"Can't," she answered, "Tessa and I are going out for the night too."

"Oh really?"

"Yep, Tessa's bringing Richie over, and he and Kenny are staying home while we go out," Amanda answered.

It truly was remarkable how strange life could be and how bizarrely things could work out in the strangest circumstances. Five months ago Amanda had seen Tessa Noel enter the hospital with her husband and her teenaged son, and she had been the one to break the bad news to the French woman that her husband would not be coming home, likely would _never_ be coming home.

Guilt wasn't just a mother's favorite weapon of choice, she was an expert in the field from being on the receiving end of it as well. As a doctor she had to be the bearer of bad news to a lot of families when tragedy struck and modern medicine couldn't save the day. But there was just something about this case in particular that stuck out to her, she couldn't put her finger on it but she also couldn't let go of it. She had urged Tessa from the start not to make things harder on herself by coming to see Duncan, because it wouldn't change anything for him and would only be worse for her to see him like that. To her surprise, Tessa had taken her advice, all the same Amanda found herself reaching out to the woman in the weeks to follow. Something happened and a bond was formed between the two women, and over time their two sons also came to be friends despite the age difference between them. Now, it was like they had been best friends all their lives, Amanda still felt a gnawing twinge of guilt every time the two got together to have fun given the circumstances that brought them together in the first place, but she was glad that she had been able to be a part of Tessa's life now that she was reentering the world a lone woman again, something Amanda could strongly relate to, she had raised Kenny as a single mother from the time he was born, and it could definitely be a challenge at times.

"Well in that case, make sure to hide anything sharp or flammable," Adam suggested.

"Really, Adam," Amanda said in an annoyed tone, "They're good boys, Richie's a good kid, you ought to come over and meet him sometime."

"No thanks," Adam replied, "I don't like children."

"How can you say that? You've never had any," Amanda said.

"My point exactly," he told her, "Alexa's trying to talk me into getting a cat instead."

"And?" she asked him.

"I don't like cats either," he replied.

"Adam, you are impossible," Amanda said.

"Thanks for noticing," he answered with a smug smirk on his face.

"What about his file?" Amanda asked him, nodding back towards MacLeod, "Where does it say he is?"

"Amanda," Adam replied, "Immortals sent to Sanctuary don't _have_ Watchers anymore, there's no reason for it."

"What about those two men you were talking to the night he was brought in?" Amanda asked.

"Joe Dawson and James Horton? What about them?" he asked.

"One of them was MacLeod's Watcher, wasn't he?"

"Dawson was _one_ of them, Watching is a 24 hour job, they have to sleep sometime, so they alternate, once Joe found out MacLeod was being transferred to Sanctuary he put the memo in to close the case file on him. No Immortal has ever recovered enough to leave Sanctuary yet, so they're considered as good as dead. No able bodied Immortals know where it is, nobody's going to go there and behead 50 catatonic Immortals, even though it would be the easiest way to power up for a fight against a stronger opponent."

"So that's it," Amanda said almost melancholically, "MacLeod's record ceased to exist the night he did."

"Pretty much," Adam told her, "The people running the place don't bother to keep in touch with the Watchers, so nobody's the wiser that MacLeod never got there."

"And as long as our superiors never get the urge to come down here," Amanda said as they headed back the way they came in the ward, "They won't be either and we'll get to keep our jobs. If anybody saw him in the state he's in now, we'd both be thrown in jail."

"They don't have any reason to come down here," Adam responded.

"Just as long as they never find out where the missing IVs and feeding tubes have disappeared to," Amanda pointed out.

Adam wasn't concerned, "Amanda, as much stuff disappears from this hospital…"

"A few bodies included, right?" she asked.

He continued, "If they started trying to account for everything that turns up missing, then this hospital _would_ go under because they'd be too busy doing that to do anything else."

"I know there're a lot of problems with the prescription drugs, people coming in, steal them and then turn around and sell them on the streets or take them themselves…"

"It's not just the drugs and the needles, Amanda," Adam told her, "It's everything, last week some crackpot got in here, made off with every bedpan in the storage closet. You try explaining that one, no one else around here can. After something like that, who's going to notice a few bags of liquid missing? Especially since we only give them to MacLeod twice a week, _nobody_ 's going to notice that, and we know he can survive on it, a gift of Immortality."

"Still," Amanda was adamant, "This better not come back to bite us in the ass, if I lose my job _or_ my son, I'm holding _you_ responsible."

"As long as we keep our mouths shut, we've got nothing to worry about," Adam assured her, "We know _he's_ not going to tell."

Amanda glanced over her shoulder and commented, "I should hope not anyway. If he does, we're in _big_ trouble."

"In more ways than one," Adam added.

* * *

While the doctors returned to their work, their mutual patient writhed around in his hospital bed. His eyes never opened, no more than a few grunts and moans escaped his throat, but his mind was running in overdrive. When he was first admitted to the hospital, Adam Pierson had informed Dawson and Horton that thinking was the only capacity he had left. This had been verified by Dr. Anne Lindsey, a specialist who had been called in to examine him shortly after the Quickening that in Dr. Pierson's words, 'melted his mind'.

Brain scans had been ordered, the tests confirmed brain activity, however the readings differed greatly from any other patient in the hospital's history, a pesky little fact that the three doctors had agreed need not be shared with anybody else in the facility. Dr. Lindsey, anticipating the outcome, had come prepared and readily supplied them with a set of somebody else's brain scans, for Amanda and Adam to show to anybody else who inquired about the case.

" _Basically the human brain already operates on warp drive," Anne had told the two local doctors, "MacLeod's brain is functioning on a basis I'd estimate at twice that rate. Whatever he's thinking of, most of it isn't more than a couple seconds before it shifts to something else entirely. Except last night when we were monitoring him, what we saw indicated he held onto the same continual thought for three hours before his brain shifted gears again and went to something else. It's really amazing how much more we can find out about Immortals' brains than regular people's."_

" _Sounds more like ludicrous speed to me," Amanda had responded, "All that brain power and it can't do him any good. What's he thinking about that hard and fast?"_

" _That's anybody's guess," Anne said._

 _Adam looked down at the 400 year old Scot who was lying motionless in the bed, and he commented, "I can guess."_

" _You read his files?" Anne asked._

" _I know his Watcher," Adam replied, "Have you seen anything like this before?"_

" _A few cases, none as bad as this though," she answered._

" _So there's no hope," Amanda said._

" _I wouldn't bet on it," Dr. Lindsey replied, "There's a reason why Immortals don't have kids, they're not supposed to have families period, they're just a liability to them and put their lives in danger."_

" _I hope everybody gunning for this bastard finds that out before they get to his wife and son," Adam told her, "Apparently they've driven off that bridge a few times already."_

" _Well, if I were you, I'd get this guy to Sanctuary as soon as possible," Anne said, "I can put in a recommendation for you, but it won't be easy. More cases like this are popping up and it's hard to get an opening."_

" _I know somebody assigned to the place," Adam remarked, "I'll notify them myself."_

" _Sorry I couldn't be more help," Anne said, "I don't know what it's going to take for us to start seeing fewer cases like this, but whatever it is, I wish somebody would figure it out soon. At least my regular patients have the option of a pulled plug to end their and their families' misery."_

" _I wouldn't imagine it's a popular one though," Amanda commented._

 _Anne nodded towards the man laying in the bed and responded, "No, but it beats this alternative."_

" _I guess I'd better let his wife know," Amanda said, and sighed heavily, "I_ _hate_ _this part of the job."_

" _I'll tell them," Adam told her._

 _Amanda shook her head, "No, I better do it." She inhaled again and said, "I just need to get my legs to move. It's a real shame, he has a wonderful family. I already got them half prepared for this but, actually having it confirmed, that's going to be a real bombshell."_

 _Amanda had left the room, leaving Adam and Dr. Lindsey to talk amongst themselves._

" _You said you could guess what it is he thinks about," Anne said, "What is it?"_

" _Doctor," Adam Pierson explained, "Before you is a very self righteous and very guilt ridden old man, whose conscience finally ran out of other people to blame for all his own mistakes. I think everything he ever did wrong is coming back to haunt him, and then some."_

" _How old is he?" Anne inquired._

" _400 years," Adam answered without missing a beat._

" _That's a lot of regrets," Anne concurred._

" _More than a thousand, I'm sure," Adam added as he looked down at the highlander almost smugly, "And I think they're all replaying themselves now that he has no barrier to protect himself from those pesky memories. And if I know his kind as well as I think I do, I'm sure his subconscious has it in it to fabricate a thousand more that never happened."_


	2. Chapter 2

Amanda looked at herself in the mirror as she put her lipstick on and pursed her lips together.

"Alright, Kenny," she said as she stepped to one side, then the other to see if any part of her sparkling black dress needed straightening out before she left the house, "You know where everything is, the emergency phone numbers, the first aid kit, the fire extinguisher?"

" _Mom_ ," her 10 year old son whined as he stood in the doorway to her bedroom, "We'll be fine."

"I know you will," she told him as she snapped her lipstick shut, "I just can't help worrying."

"You're a doctor, doctors don't worry," Kenny said.

Amanda smiled, "Doctors worry, it's the only way they can function, they just don't let anybody else know it. Now you and Richie remember the rules, don't leave the house, don't let anybody in…"

"If the phone rings, don't let anybody know you're not here," Kenny recited, "If somebody comes to the house and says they're a cop, call the police station and see if they're lying, make sure the windows are shut, lock the doors, duck and cover under the table and stop, drop and roll."

"Very funny," Amanda responded.

"Mom, we know what we're doing, we're not stupid," Kenny said.

"I know that," she told him.

"Then why do we always have to go over this?" he asked, "Don't you think I'll remember?"

"It's just a reflex," she said, "If I didn't repeat everything when you were little, you'd never remember."

"Well I'm not little anymore," Kenny insisted.

Amanda looked at him, wordlessly pointing out that most of his growing hadn't even started yet.

"You know what I mean," he said.

She ruffled his hair and told him, "I know you'll be alright, it's just a mother's instinct to worry. As long as you're around me, I know you're fine, once it's beyond my control, I get nervous."

"Oh this ought to be loads of fun when I go to camp next month," Kenny rolled his eyes. He decided to change the subject and asked his mom, "You gonna meet a man tonight?"

"Kenny!" Amanda choked on a startled laugh.

"Well are you?" he asked.

"I'm going out with Tessa," Amanda told him.

"Yeah but that doesn't mean you can't meet a man while you're out, does it?" Kenny asked, "Are you gonna meet another jerk like Dad?"

"Kenny, I'm not _planning_ to meet any man," Amanda said.

"But you might, right?" Kenny asked.

She looked at her son for a moment and finally responded with a heavy sigh, "I don't know, I might, someday."

"Not like Dad?"

She smiled at her son and told him, "No, if I ever _do_ meet another man I'm going to have higher expectations next time."

Kenny took a couple steps over towards his mom and put his arms around her, "I hate him for walking out on us."

Amanda smiled sadly and patted his head and told him, "I know, me too."

"I wish he was dead," Kenny added.

"Me too," Amanda said with a knowing look in her eyes that he didn't see.

Kenny pulled back and asked her, "You think he'd ever have the nerve to come back around here?"

She smiled and assured him, "No, Kenny, I'm sure he'll not darken our doorstep ever again."

"Good," the 10-year-old answered, "Because if he does, I'm gonna kill him."

Amanda laughed, "I'm sure you could, but _how_ would you do it?"

Kenny hadn't really wanted to reveal his secret but he started to explain, "You know that big ugly vase over by the window that overlooks the front door? Well I figured…"

Down on the first floor they heard the front door open and a voice call up, "We're here!"

"That's Tessa," Amanda said, "Come on, Kenny."

They left her bedroom and Kenny barreled down the stairs ahead of her. Tessa and Richie stood at the door and watched them come down. Tessa was dressed for the evening in a white and black dress with a matching jacket.

"Are we early?" Tessa asked.

"No, right on time," Amanda answered, "I'll get my purse and we'll be on our way. Hello, Richie."

"Hi, Amanda."

Tessa turned to Richie and attempted to 'fix' one stray curl that stuck out of place much to his typical teenage dismay and embarrassment.

"Richie," Amanda said as she reentered the hall, "I hope leftovers will be to your satisfaction, you two can just take something out of the fridge and heat it up. That way I won't have to come home to a lot of dishes."

"We could've just ordered pizza," Kenny said.

Amanda felt one of her earrings come loose and stopped to refasten it, "If you eat much more pizza, you're going to _turn_ into a pepperoni."

"There are worse things to be," he insisted.

"Alright you two," Amanda addressed both their sons, "Be good, have fun, we'll be back around 11."

"Bye, Tess!" Richie waved.

The mothers said another round of goodbyes that ended with Amanda's order, " _Don't burn down the house_ ," and they were out the door and on their way.

"Hey Richie," Kenny said once the two of them were on their own, "Come on, I want to show you the new game I got. Mom wouldn't let me hook it up to the TV down here, she says it'll ruin the set, it's up in my room."

"And what happens when it ruins _your_ TV?" Richie asked as he followed Kenny up the stairs.

"I don't know," he replied, "I guess we blow up that bridge when we come to it."

"That's _cross that bridge_ when you come to it," Richie told him.

"That's not what Mom says," Kenny responded, "She always says 'we'll blow up the bridge when we come to it'."

"Interesting," Richie dryly remarked.

* * *

Tessa looked around at the restaurant Amanda had made reservations at for dinner. "This is a lovely place, do you come here often?"

"No," the doctor shook her head, "It was recommended to me by a colleague of mine, he likes to bring his wife here on occasion." Amanda flashed back to her conversation earlier that day with Adam. At times she felt like she had a 20 pound canary in her throat, and she was almost certain that it showed. She still couldn't entirely shake off the guilt of socializing with the wife of her hopeless patient.

Despite the two women hitting it off, there was still an air of awkwardness between them at times. Now was one of those moments. Tessa finally broke the silence by saying, "Next time we do this, you can bring Kenny over to our place, by next week the men should be done working."

"How is your new place?" Amanda asked.

"We love it," Tessa told her, "Now that we got all the cracks sealed, the old wallpaper torn off, fresh paint, the old carpets torn up, a new tile floor put down…it's actually starting to feel like home."

"Well that's good," Amanda said, "I can bring Kenny over if you'd rather, but it's no trouble having Richie over. They're good boys, and I'm amazed how well they get along."

Tessa smiled and responded, "I guess it's true that no matter how old men get, underneath they're still little boys."

Amanda leaned back in her chair and stretched and heard her shoulder pop, "Kenny's been nagging my ear off all day. There's a rock concert coming to town next week and he wants to go so badly."

"Alone?" Tessa asked.

"I get the impression it's not the thing you take your mother to," Amanda said, "Anyway, Kenny wanted to know if Richie could go with him. Tickets are $300 a pop, can you believe it? I told him I'd think about it for him, and I'd ask you about Richie. The money's not an issue, I'd be happy to pay for both of them to go."

"I guess Richie hasn't heard about it yet," Tessa said, "He didn't say anything to me."

"Well if it's okay with you, just let me know," Amanda told her, "At least I'd know Kenny was with somebody mature and responsible."

That drew an unexpected laugh from Tessa.

"I'm sorry, Amanda, I know what you mean, it's just that Richie is often still very much a child himself," Tessa said, "I wish I knew someone who could go and keep an eye on both of them. I'd feel a lot better about it then."

"That seems to be something we have in common," Amanda said, "I wish Kenny had had a father figure in his life."

Tessa looked at her curiously, "Didn't Kenny know his father at all?"

Amanda bit her bottom lip and glanced down at the tablecloth for a minute before she answered, "Kenny never had a father." She looked at the French woman and explained, "He's not _really_ my son, I adopted him when he was a baby."

Tessa looked mortified, "Oh my God, Amanda, I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

"Neither does Kenny," Amanda confessed, "You see, my husband walked out on me when he found out that I couldn't have children. Later that year, a young woman came into the hospital, frantic. Before anybody could find out what was wrong with her, the hospital went into a blackout. They got the generator running quickly but in that confusion a lot of patients got lost from wandering around in a panic trying to get out. It took us hours to get everybody back where they belonged. The girl was gone…later, one of the women working in the maternity ward realized there was a baby there unaccounted for. A full term newborn, a boy, 6 pounds, 7 ounces, 18 inches long, just the slightest of blonde peach fuzz on top of his head."

The doctor shook her head and continued, "Nobody could figure out where he came from, nobody had delivered this baby, all of a sudden he was just there, born, the cord cut and tied off, all cleaned off, nobody could explain it. We turned the hospital inside out looking for any woman who had just given birth we didn't have a record of. Couldn't find anybody. So then we brought in the police, and we questioned everybody at the hospital, had anybody seen a woman come in with a baby? Had anybody seen anything out of the ordinary? The police checked surveillance cameras all around the block to see if there was anybody on tape coming or going. Nobody came in with a baby who didn't still have them in the waiting room. Nobody had access to the maternity ward who wasn't supposed to be there. Nobody saw anybody come in or go out with a baby. A woman from children's services came to the hospital to take him away and assign him to a temporary family." She scoffed and added, "I have children from foster homes rushed into my ER every day of the week. I wasn't about to let the same thing happen to him. So I adopted him. I hadn't really given much thought to adopting a child at that time, but…I don't know…like the minute I saw him, all those maternal instincts just kicked in. I never told Kenny he was adopted, he thinks that his father is the man that walked out on me 10 years ago. We've been very happy together, but it's hard sometimes raising a boy without a father. And it's hard letting him out of my sight because there's nobody else I can turn to who can watch him and I know he's safe."

Tessa looked dumbstruck for a minute, when she finally recovered she said, "Well, it seems we have more in common than we thought."

"What do you mean?" Amanda asked.

"Duncan and I sort of adopted Richie too, he was also bounced around foster homes, he broke into our shop one night and Duncan caught him."

"And he decided to take him in?" Amanda said in disbelief, "Give that man points for ingenuity. Oh, I'm sorry, Tessa, I didn't mean…"

"It's alright," Tessa assured her, "I wasn't sure at first how it would work out, but it did. We became a family."

"Well I didn't want to say anything, but I _was_ wondering why he didn't get either of your looks," Amanda said.

The two woman had a small laugh over that.

"Well this is certainly an eventful evening," Tessa said, "If they ever get here with our order I imagine it'll be even better. I wonder what the boys are doing."

"I think we're better off not knowing," Amanda said as she took a drink of her water.

* * *

"Alright Kenny, where'd you go?" Richie ducked his head into every room he passed as he tried to figure out where the towheaded kid had disappeared to, "Kenny? Kenny?"

Richie found himself clear in the kitchen and no sign of the kid yet. He was starting to wonder if Kenny had gone outside as a joke to scare him, then he heard a voice behind him, and he saw the kid coming in the doorway in his mom's blue and gray bathrobe, which dragged on the floor behind him, wielding a short sword in his hand.

"Check it out, Richie," Kenny said in a deep announcer voice, "And now the continuing adventures of Delicatessen Samurai."

"You look ridiculous," Richie told the kid.

"Careful, pal," Kenny warned as he raised the sword in a two handed grip, "Any more smart remarks like that and I'll gut you like a cold cut."

"Kenny, your mom has got to start putting you to bed earlier on Saturday nights," Richie said.

Kenny acted like he didn't hear Richie. Instead he put the sword on the table and picked up a loaf of Italian bread. "Watch this," he let out a yell and hit his head against the loaf, and looked surprised, "It didn't work."

Richie shook his head and rolled his eyes. Then he picked up the sword and examined it, "Hey, where'd you get this from?"

"It's my mom's," Kenny answered.

"No kidding, what's she do with it?"

"She doesn't do anything with it," Kenny said, "She got it at a junk shop, that and that ugly vase upstairs."

"Huh," Richie examined it closer and commented, "Feels too real to be junk, I wonder…"

They heard a car door slam outside, and they looked to each other.

"They wouldn't be back yet," Kenny said.

"Let's go see who it is," Richie told him.

They made a beeline for the front door and looked out. A car was parked at the curb with no lights on, and somebody was making their way up the sidewalk in the dark.

"Assume the position," Richie said.

He and Kenny moved over to an umbrella stand next to the dining room and took out two boards strategically hidden inside of it, moved back towards the door on opposite sides, Richie behind it, Kenny on the other side standing on an inn table so he was tall enough, and each of them looked ready to beat the brains out of whoever walked in the door.

Richie heard the footsteps getting closer and he called out, "Who is it?"

No answer, he tried again, more forceful this time, "I said who the hell is it!?"

From the other side of the door they heard a muffled response, "That's a fine way to speak to your family."

The two boys looked at each other, they knew that voice. Richie lowered his board and pulled the door open.

"Connor!"

The almost 500 year old Scotsman smiled and told them, "I thought I'd find you two around here." He glanced around the room and asked them, "Your mothers here?"

"No."

"Good," he responded.

"What're you doing here, Connor?" Richie asked.

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by," he answered.

"How'd you know we were here?" Kenny asked.

"Because I already stopped by Tessa's house and it was empty," Connor explained, "I drew a natural conclusion. Your mothers gone for the night?"

"Yes," the two boys answered.

"Good," Connor told them, "My car's outside, we're going to go for a little ride."

"Where're we going?" Kenny asked.

* * *

" _Doctor," Adam Pierson explained, "Before you is a very self righteous and very guilt ridden old man, whose conscience finally ran out of other people to blame for all his own mistakes. I think everything he ever did wrong is coming back to haunt him, and then some."_

" _How old is he?" Anne inquired._

" _400 years," Adam answered without missing a beat._

" _That's a lot of regrets," Anne concurred._

" _More than a thousand, I'm sure," Adam added as he looked down at the highlander almost smugly, "And I think they're all replaying themselves now that he has no barrier to protect himself from those pesky memories. And if I know his kind as well as I think I do, I'm sure his subconscious has it in it to fabricate a thousand more that never happened."_

In a dark and dreary place resembling a courtroom, Duncan MacLeod found himself standing before a man in black, his hands chained together, and at least a dozen other people all standing around him in various parts of the room.

"Duncan MacLeod," the judge said, "You are hereby charged with the murder of your student, Richie Ryan, how do you plead?"


End file.
